


Storm Cloud Bruises

by thegayestshadowhunter (BuckysButt)



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gangsters, Alternate Universe - Mob, Canon-Typical Violence, Drug Use, F/F, F/M, If you've ever watched skins, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Magnus and Alec are the dad friends except they're really bad parents, Piercings, Recreational Drug Use, SO MUCH ALCOHOL, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex, Underage Smoking, Wild youths, this is similar but with hints of gang/mob stuff kinda
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2017-01-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 04:57:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6738994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuckysButt/pseuds/thegayestshadowhunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The sun had just begun to glow golden over the horizon, painting everything with strokes of bronze and peach. Clary's fingers itched to capture the glow with her watercolours, but settled for a shot with her camera. Beside her, Izzy was sipping casually from a coffee cup that was eighty percent vodka, poured on the cold dregs of Alec's americano.</p><p>(Inspired by Mustang Kids, by Whimper Soldier, which you should all check out too)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. -one-

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WhimperSoldier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhimperSoldier/gifts).



The sun had just begun to glow golden over the horizon, painting everything with strokes of bronze and peach. Clary's fingers itched to capture the glow with her watercolours, but settled for a shot with her camera. Beside her, Izzy was sipping casually from a coffee cup that was eighty percent vodka, poured on the cold dregs of Alec's americano. The park was almost empty, save a few shouting children clustered around a rusted swing set.

Clary snapped photo after photo. Izzy's dazzling smile, the back of Alec's neck, the cotton candy coloured tips of Magnus' black hair.

The colours never came out right on the camera's screen, but she wouldn't dream of replacing it. It had been a gift from Jace, the first thing he had ever stolen for her. She didn't count the small, silver tube of cadmium paint he had slipped into her pocket after she had to choose rent money over art.

It had been a promise that she would never have to choose again.

"You alright, baby?" he asked, his thumb grazing her lips. She lets herself feel special even though he said it to everyone. Simon, Magnus, Lydia, Alec.

"It's not right," she whispered. "But it's okay." She traced the cuts and bruises on his knuckles, comparing his dried blood to her own. "It's doesn't have to be right to be okay."

 

* * *

 

Another day, another sunset. This time they're on the roof of Alec and Magnus' apartment building. They spend most of their time split between roofs, and balconies. Sunset to sunrise when they can.

"Luke asked who I'm staying with, again." Clary says it casually, like if she can convince someone else it's no big deal then it won't be. Izzy knows better.

"And?"

"I told him to mind his own." She had loved her step dad, once, but after her mother's accident, when she learned of the lies she'd been fed since birth... Running away want just a choice, it was a necessity.

Izzy took a drag from her cigarette. It was one of the Marlboroughs she liked to nick off her mother. Usually she smoked Amber Leaf with the rest of them, always asking Jace or Alec to roll for her.

"Is it smart to antagonise the one cop with a good chance of bringing us all down?"

"It's better than telling the truth and leading him right to Jace." Clary took the the cigarette from between Izzy's fingers, admired the ruby red lipstick marks momentarily, and crushed it beneath one of her scuffed and splattered boots.

"Those things will kill you, you know?"

"That why you only smoke the green ones?"

Clary sighed, ignoring the question. They both knew the answer.

 

* * *

 

"This one's for you, baby."

He kissed her cheek and squeezed her ass in one fluid motion. Jace's golden hair was gelled back from his face by a mixture of sweat and blood, and although his knuckles were wrapped, Clary knew well enough what the purple, storm cloud bruises looked like underneath.

She cheered him on.

She always did, with one hand in the air, and the other interlocked with Izzy, and the taste of his name in her mouth stained with his sisters lipstick. He had his boys, and she had her girl, but they had each other when it mattered.

Fists fly, and Clary watches as Jace falls. It's slow motion, and it's the fastest thing she's ever seen.

Before her brain catches up with her legs, she's over the makeshift barrier and the rings on her left hand have met the face of Jace's opponent with a slap that stings her palm. Then two strong arms grab her from her waist, and pull just before her nose is broken.

"He's okay," someone tells her. It might be Izzy and it might be Lydia. A glass is pushed into her hand and she downs it without looking. The whisky stings her throat and clears her mind. She's no longer red with rage, and exhaustion crashes into her like a wave.

"Jace?"

"Is okay." It's Alec who speaks this time, although he's blocking her view of the ring.

It's not Jace's first loss, but it usually takes more to knocking him down. His front tooth is chipped from a fight when he took more punches to the face than should have been possible, and Clary loved running her tongue over the crack when they kissed.

"He's okay," Alec repeats, and Clary believes him because she wants to, and because it's Alec. Because if Jace isn't okay, then Clary isn't either.

 

* * *

 

It's small, and round. The pale blue of the early morning sky and perfectly smooth.

Magnus didn't hesitate before swallowing his, and Alec followed suite. Jace took two. Izzy seemed to contemplate not having one, but thought better of it and chased the pill down with cheap wine from the off licence they had robbed.

The ecstasy was a treat, a celebration of a job well done, but Clary's never had more than half a joint, and for one fleeting second she wonders what Luke would think, before reminding herself she doesn't care.

"How long till it kicks in?" It tasted bitter, but a sip of her warm, cheap beer fixes that.

"Not long," Magnus replies. He's right.

Not ten minutes later she's leaning over the balcony, and she can't remember whose apartment she's in, but the music is familiar and when the beer bottle slips from her fingers onto the street below, she just smiles because it was piss anyways. She thinks about following the bottle down, and she thinks about flying up until she could dance amongst the stars, but she doesn't do either.

"Careful, biscuit. What would your father say if he found you splat on the street." Magnus was a stark silhouette against the lights inside, but Clary could still make out the sparks of glitter in his hair.

"Like father like daughter." She laughed, and leaned forward, until she felt his arm on her shoulder.

"Not him. Luke. It would kill him to lose you both." He pulled her closer, farther from the railing.

"I was never his to lose, Mag. Not after he helped her lie to me." She picked up another beer bottle from a box on the ground and bit the cap off. It nicked her gums and filled her mouth with coppery blood, but she felt nothing as she spat the bloody cap onto the street below.

"Clary, I knew Jocelyn, through Ragnor, and she wouldn't have lied to you unless she had a reason."

"Well I guess we'll never know, will we."

Even with all the drugs, the drinking, everything she had done to forget, Clary knew nothing could erase the day from her mind. The day of her mother's accident. A drunk driver had crashed right through her, and in the six months since it happened she had been unconscious, oblivious to her daughter's new life, and her husband's despair. She had no idea that her family had read her Will, that Clary had seen the note telling Luke to 'Tell her everything."

It had killed Clary to find out that Luke wasn't her real dad. That the man who should have been her father jumped from a ten storey building, off his head on more drugs than Clary had done altogether. That he had taken her older brother with him.

"I don't blame Jos. Val was crazy. Thought he could rule the world. Sometimes I wonder if I should stop you from copying him."

"Do you think you could?" It comes out much softer than Clary intended, and much more real.

"We couldn't stop him. No one could."

"That's not what I asked."

"No. No it's not."

Magnus lit a cigarette. The orange glow of the tip was like a miniature sunrise.

 


	2. -two-

They're lying on Alec and Magnus' bed, all five of them, golden fairy lights twinkling up and down the walls in a way that really doesn't scream _drug dealer_ , but kind of does too.

"We should rob a bank" Izzy suggests in between pulls of their second third spliff. So far they'd become experts at petty shoplifting, mugging businessmen, one coat-hanger carjack just because Clary bet Alec he couldn't.

"Too many risks," Clary replies. "We'd be better hitting an electronics store, and selling it all off online." 

Jace and Magnus look at Clary like she's grown another head. This was back when Clary had only been hanging with them for a short time She had no idea that every few weeks like clockwork, Izzy would suggest a bank heist and everyone would agree until they got sober again.

"Don't they have silent alarms?" Alec asked. They had run into one of those on their first (and last) 'heist' when Alec was still seventeen, and the cops let them off with a warning because Robert Lightwood showed up with his chequebook. They were reckless, sure, but none of them wanted to end up behind bars.

"Not all of them, and they're ways around that too"

The sun rose slowly, bathing the curtainless room with a peachy glow, and all the while Clary explained exactly how they would pull off the heist, right down to the time it should take place. She knew how the alarms usually worked, how they could be disabled, which items to take because _some electronics are traceable now, you know._  


"You're kind of amazing, baby."

"Tell me I'm amazing when we get away with it."

 

* * *

 

Clary's arms are a constellation of bruises. A whole sky of pinks and greens and deep, deep navy blooming on her skin like morbid flowers.

The biggest one is from two days ago, maybe three when she borrowed a pair of Jace's boots to go tag a freshly painted wall, and ended up falling over herself while trying to hop over it. It's dark blue, fading into purple and green, and there was a matching one on her shin, and a splatter of cuts like paint drops on her hands. 

Then there's the pink ones that start at her neck and make it all the way to her wrists. Izzy left those about a week ago, and Clary thanked her with an orgasm that lasted almost ten minutes.

The green one is from when Jace circled the whole arm in one hand and smashed their lips together while stars danced behind their eyelids. The brick wall behind her grazed her back, but when she screamed it was with pleasure, not pain.

There's one that's pale brown, like a splotch of tan on her pale and freckled skin, and she's not sure how she got it. But the colour reminds her of when she and Simon would lie side by side on her bed, his soft brown limbs always looks so beautiful beside her own. But thoughts of Simon fill her with slow, melancholic, regret, so instead of letting herself wallow she grabs a silver sharpie from a box of markers Jace slipped in his pocket after she said the were almost as pretty as he was.

The silver is her favourite, and soon she's filled her own little galaxy with constellations, swirling stars shooting across her arms. For a while, they're so pretty that she forgets just how much they hurt.

 

* * *

 

 

It's raining when Alec decides to pierce his own nose. It bleeds more than Izzy said it should, but Magnus soaks some tissue in cheap vodka and holds it to Alec's face while he whispers "Fuck fuck fuck," in time with the _drip drip drip_ of the rain. The bleeding stops soon after.

He used a safety pin, and he leaves it hanging from one nostril for almost a week. Lydia says it'll get infected, Magnus says he looks punk, and Jace says he looks like an ass. Then Clary comes home (and he wonders when his apartment became her home too) with two boxes of tampons, two bars of chocolate, and the little black nose ring, the size of his smallest fingernail.

"Would you like to do the honours?" he asks, because Magnus wanted him to cut back on cigarettes, and his hands won't stop shaking. He's not scared of anything, but if he was, he'd be scared of ripping his nose wide open and adding to his ever expanding list of scars.

Clary nods, and slowly, carefully, pulls out the safety pin, rusted with blood. He winces a little, although it's nothing compared to when it went it, which was nothing compared to the knife he took to the arm a month before.

"You want me to clean it?"

"Yeah, the cheap stuff's in the top cupboard."

"I know," she reminds him. 

She's been living there at least a month, maybe more, and Alec's still not sure _why_ , beyond the fact that when Jace first brought her over she was tiny, and filthy, and nothing like any girl he had brought home before. And they had all just accepted it when Magnus hugged her like he'd known her forever, and Alec had been too stoned to be jealous, but maybe he hadn't because since she's lived with them, he's talked to her a handful of times, and never sober, and never by choice.

Until now.

She dabs at the hole gently. It stings but he's expecting it so he doesn't wince. Instead, he focuses on how her nose scrunches up in concentration. How her hands aren't exactly steady, but they're pretty close.

"You've done this before?" he asked, only it's not really a question.

"Simon's ear. Two in the lobe, one cartilage. And I tried to do my own tongue but I fucked it up, completely off centre. So I had to let it close."

He wants to ask about Simon. And why she never talks about whatever happened before she stumbled into their lives. Why she refuses to smoke straight tobacco and knows so much about armed robbery.

But instead he smirks and, half joking, asks if she'd do his own tongue.

"What would Magnus say if I poked more holes in his beau?" She had the ring in his nose now, but was still close to his face. Not too close, but he could see clearly the smudged concealer painted under exhausted eyes. And how incredibly young she looked in the daylight.

"What age did you say you were again?"

"Twenty."

Her gaze is focused in the ring in his nose.

"And what age are you really?" he asked softly, slowly, like he's trying not to spook a kitten. 

He's always been a big brother, and all the drugs in the world wouldn't take away the part of him that was desperate to protect everyone who touched his life. A therapist might tell him it was an attempt to make up for the one person he couldn't save. He couldn't honestly say that they would be wrong.

"Twenty." She says it slower this time, and still won't meet his eyes.

"You know I'm twenty, right?"

"Yeah. I'm just..." she trails off, unable to finish.

"You don't have to tell me. But you don't have to lie either."

"Did Magnus tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"What do you think?"

"He didn't have to. You've got that look in your eye like you're so terrified of the world, but you're in awe of it all too. I see it in Izzy, and it flickers in Jace sometimes too. The world is a fucking emery board, but it doesn't wear you down overnight."

"Seventeen," she replies. She couldn't say anything else.

"It's alright."

She laughs.

"Okay maybe it's not, but it's okay."

"How can it be okay if it's not alright?"

Alec thinks back to what he said to Izzy and Jace the night they lost their youngest brother.

"Sometimes things are wrong, bad, completely fucked. But they're still kinda okay too cause you're alive and breathing through your pain. And maybe it's a selfish way to look at the world, but as long as your own heart is beating in your chest then it's okay. It's not alright, but it's okay."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So as you might have guessed, this isn't always going to be chronological. Usually context clues will tell you when it's set, but if not then they're probably not relevant anyways. 
> 
> Also the Alec piercing his nose thing is borrowed (stolen) from Mustang Kids, but I just really wanted to turn it into an opportunity for some Alec/Clary brotp bonding  
> And yeah, that was the same thing Clary said to Jace in chapter one, it'll make more sense eventually, maybe.


	3. -three-

 

The lights are dim and there's a candle, or maybe more than one. He's not sure. 

He doesn't know where he is, or why, but he knows that the most beautiful woman he's ever seen had handed him a tall glass and said "Drink up," and he didn't know how to refuse.

They're on a sofa, or a bed, or one of those fancy seats frequented by historical queens, and girls who had just swooned, and he think he might swoon. Or just pass out maybe. Everything is warm and soft, foggy like whenever he opened an oven and his glasses steamed over. He can't tell if he's wearing them or not, and his arms don't have the strength to touch his face and check.

Then a slow vignette creps into the edges of his vision, until all he can see is the woman in front of him.

He hears a voice scream his name, then everything goes dark.

 

* * *

 

It was May, or March, maybe April. Clary had lost all reason to care for the date when she climbed out her bedroom window with a backpack full of clothes, and a thousand dollars, cash.

She had snipped a good five inches off her long, red hair. She knew it wouldn't make her unrecognizable, but it was more symbolic than anything else. A way of leaving some of her past behind. Lightening her load.

She had cut it again, after meeting Jace. The weeks she had gone without a proper shower had left it a tangled, matted mess and she was almost glad when Magnus handed her his electric razor and said "Shaved sides are very _in_ , Biscuit."

 

The smoothness of it unnerved her at first, but she grew to love it, and soon it became almost as regular as shaving her legs.

She loved how it felt when Izzy slid her palms over the velvety sides and tangled them in the mess of red curls. And how the breeze tickled her ears when she went outside. How she didn't have as much hair to worry about when she ended the night puking up her guts in a stranger's bathroom.

She let Magnus do her makeup one day, thick foundation, heavy contour, and a million other techniques Clary had never heard of. 

Two hours later a different girl stared back at her from the full length mirror. A girl with big eyes, and plump lips. She had no freckles, no imperfections at all and Clary couldn't help but wonder if her parent's would recognise her. If Luke saw her in the street would he even know who she was? And why was she so sad at the thought that he wouldn't?

 

* * *

 

Rafael Santiago arrived with a black eye, a split lip, and an unconscious boy in his arms. 

Magnus didn't ask, he just cleared a space on the sofa and got to work. A fluttering pulse eased his nerves enough to divert his attention to his friend's face, and cleaning the cut with an antiseptic wipe.

"Camille?" he asked, as he gently, gently wiped away the trail of blood dripping from his mouth and down his chin like vampiric makeup.

"What was your first clue?"

"And she drugged him?"

"Dios, Magnus. Aren't you going to ask any question's you don't already know the answer to?"

"I haven't decided." He checked the young boys pulse again, and found it steadier, more even than before. He wasn't dead, anything beyond that was a bonus as far as Magnus was concerned.

It was late afternoon, and the other's had gone out, casing the liquor store that Clary promised would be an easy steal. He'd never been too concerned with armed robbery, dealing provided him with more than he needed to get by, and petty theft made up the rest. But crime was addictive, and they were all addicts, every last one of them.

"Look, I risked everything to get this kid out of the DuMort, and I don't know if I can get back in." Rafael looked down as he said it, like he hated the thought of asking Magnus' help. 

He didn't take it personally. He never did.

"You're always welcome here, Rafe. Besides, I'll need someone to stick around and play nurse to Sleeping Beauty."

"Simon," he whispered. "His name's Simon."

 

* * *

 

The baseball bat was Jace's most prized possession. The wood was worn down by use, and covered in scrapes and doodles, signed names and lipstick marks.

He liked to take it with him when they would go for walks. To hold it over his shoulder with one hand, Clary's intertwined with the other one. No one ever bothers them. Not when he has the bat with him.

The first time he lets her swing it, it's into the window of a cop car. They don't take anything except a broken shard, which he used to carve their names into a wooden telephone pole, inside a crude heart. Between the romance and adrenaline they find themselves making out against a wall, fast and rough and like nothing Clary's ever done before.

She'd kissed Eric on a dare once, and Simon during spin the bottle, but nothing prepared her for the tingle of Jace's lips that warmed her whole body on that cold night. It was better than anything she'd ever smoked or drunk before. 

When they got back to the apartment he handed her the bat once more, and a marker to sign it with. But instead of her name, she drew a love heart, with an arrow right through the centre. She wasn't sure why.

She still isn't.

 

* * *

 

When she first saw Simon on Magnus' sofa she screamed, and then she used the butterfly knife Alec gave her to slice open her palm because she'd had this nightmare before, but the pinches didn't work like they used to.

Magnus explained everything while he sewed up her hand, after swearing that if she did it again he'd hide the knife.

"He's alive, he's gonna be just fine. But his body needs time to recover. We don't know what she gave him, we just know it was strong."

Clary cried, and then she hated herself for it because she was certain she had spent more time crying since running away than the first seventeen years of her life combined.

"But how? How did he end up there? He was a good kid. _Is_ a good kid."

"Your guess is as good as mine, Biscuit. But just be glad he's okay now."

"It's hard when I'm so mad at him for getting tangled in all this bullshit." The tears had stopped, but her eyes were still red and watery. "I need a drink, Mags."

Silently he handed her a beer from the fridge. She removed the cap with her knife and had downed half the bottle before she spoke again.

"I was hoping for something stronger."

"There's time enough for that darling. Now tell me how it went today?" He would have asked Alec about the excursion, but after Clary's reaction to Simon, he had physically dragged both Izzy and Jace out of the door.

A quick text explained that Jace had a fight later so they'd gone to Lydia's to get ready, and wouldn't be back till sunrise.

"It went... well, I guess. We're gonna go ahead with the plan, this day next week." She took a slow sip of the beer, eyes still on Simon. "If it all goes as planned we won't be drinking anymore of this cheap shit." She tried to laugh but it didn't quite come out right.

"And if it doesn't?"

She thought of the cold, dark metal of Luke's gun. How he had taught her to shoot it when she was fourteen just is case, but in case of what, he wouldn't say. Every cop in the city had one just like it. Small, cold, deadly, and pointed right at her.

"Then I'll be happy to just make it out alive."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're enjoying this AU verse as much as I am, then you'll adore Switchblade Girls and Pistol Boys, by the wonderful AvadaKedavraProductions
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/6773827/chapters/15482062
> 
> So go check it out, it's so good, trust me


	4. -four-

The day Jace dies is the worst one Clary's ever had. 

Worse than breaking her arm when she was twelve and not being able to draw. Worse than when Luke told her the truth about her father. Worse, even, than two weeks after she ran away, when she hadn't eaten in days because she had spent the last of her money on tampons and paracetamol.

It was over almost before she realised what had happened.

He was only legally dead for about ten seconds before the defibrillator restarted his heart.

Jace had laughed it off. Said it was no big deal. He had stared down death, and won, and to him that was worth (almost) dying for.

Clary couldn't laugh. She just cried buckets of tears, whole bathfulls until her eyes were red and scratchy and she physically couldn't cry any longer. So she slept. One hand linked with Jace's, still wrapped from the fight and specked with dried blood. His thumb traced swirls on the back of her hand. The other played delicately with her hair.

And when she woke she acted as if it had never happened. 

As if it had only been a bad dream.

As if his dying hadn't made her want to die too.

 

* * *

 

Clary could hear Simon fucking Izzy through the wall. Or maybe Izzy was fucking Simon, with her bright pink strap on. 

Clary tried to not to think about it too much but it was hard when her every thought was punctuated by a scream of pleasure from her best friends and her... Girlfriend? Friend with benefits? She and Izzy hadn't discussed their relationship status, and it wasn't like Clary was jealous.

Okay, she was a little jealous, but there was nothing she could do. Izzy was her own person and if she wanted Simon, however briefly her infatuations with boys seemed to last, Clary could live with that.

After all, she didn't have any choice.

 

* * *

 

Jace thought about the day he met Clary often. 

When they smoked together, on the rooftop, and she drew pictures of him in biro, scrawled across his arms, juxtaposing canvas and muse.

When he held back her soft orange mane while she released the contents of her stomach after a night of declaring "I'm not that drunk" and "I can absolutely drink more shots than Alec."

When they fucked, hard and fast, with her legs circling his waist, his lips exploring her neck, her hands leaving deep scratches in between the swirling tattoos on his back.

He thought about how he had glanced at her across the coffee shop. How small she looked. Not just petite, but malnourished. So he offered to buy her a sandwich and a drink, and she had agreed with almost no hesitation.

She had repaid the favour by talking to him for hours, and when he excused himself to use the bathroom, stealing the wallet in his jacket. 

Five foot nothing, ninety pounds soaking wet, and she had seen Jace with his scarred knuckles and chest tattoos and though "I'm going to steal that man's wallet. That would be a good plan."

It took him almost no time to track her down. She had gone to the nearest park, the one she told him _not twenty minutes ago_ , was her favourite part of the city. It was almost too easy to sneak up behind her where she sat on a bench, to tap her on the shoulder.

"I believe you have something that belongs to me?"

Her eyes grew huge, terrified, and her whole body shook, although whether it was the cold or her fear, he didn't know.

"I- I don't know what you're talking about," she lied.

He admired her bravery, or maybe her stupidity. Could have been either, or both. He hoped it was both.

"Look, I only had twenty bucks in there, and you can keep that if you want, but the actual wallet belonged to my dad. He passed away a while back, and it's basically the only thing of his I have left."

He gave her his most vulnerable look, which was tough considering he was a foot taller than her, and could have bench-pressed twice her weight, easy. But it seemed to work because he could see her look down, conflicted.

  
_So she has some morals,_ he thought, _she's not just a bored klepto._  


"So I can really keep the twenty?" She pulled the wallet out of her back pocket, but held it close to her chest.

Jace swiped it off her easily.

"I can't believe you fell for that. First rule of petty theft, baby, you never, ever admit it. Never." He turned around and took a few steps away from her, before turning back to look at her over his shoulder. "Well? Aren't you gonna join me and hear the rest of the rules?"

She looked somewhere between shocked and suspicious, but after a minute she made up her mind and stood up. 

She'd been following him around ever since. Like a cat that you poured milk for one time, but comes back every day for more until you say _fuck it_ and start buying real cat food. 

First she slept on the couch, then Izzy's bed, then they came home from a night of public drinking and casual vandalism to find someone (Magnus) had somehow assembled an entire bed frame (with help from Alec) in the room that had formerly been a cupboard, and contained the bed, a nightstand, and very little else.

He helped her christen it, eating her out, and fucking her until she could barely breath. Then they fell asleep, limbs tangled and naked, two heartbeats in sync.

And once more, he thought about the day they met.

 

* * *

The alleyway was thick with shadows. Each step echoed a thousand times, and once more again.

Two people, shadows stretched by a streetlight up ahead.

Two shots ring out, echoed by two screams.

Two bodies fall, side by side like tiny dominoes in a game they were deemed too young to play, too innocent to be a part of.

A figure retreats, white hair painted gold by the streetlight.

 

* * *

 

Izzy acquires the polaroid camera when she sees the black leather backpack she'd been asking Magnus to buy her for months just sitting there, begging to be stolen, in between her and it's owner on the subway. 

So when they reached the next stop she waited, snatched the bag, and darted between the closing doors as the owner pounded her fists against the glass, screaming silent curses. She looked like a trust fund girl, a trophy wife in the making, and Izzy felt no remorse at all as she brought the rose-gold iPhone she had found inside straight to Dot's Pawn Shop, before the owner could track it, and left with enough money to buy herself new ID, because she was starting to hate the photo in her old one.

She didn't bother going through the rest of the bag's contents until she arrived home, so it was actually Clary who discovered the camera.

Together they spent the rest of the evening taking 'artsy' shots of each other until they ran out of film, at which point they took the purse from the stolen bag with them to the nearest Walmart and bought as much as they could with the two hundred dollars. 

(The money just confirmed Izzy's theory that the bag owner was rich, and wouldn't even miss it.)

Then they took it to the park, and Clary captured Izzy, hair spread like a halo by the wind, and glowing bronze as sunlight lit her from behind, an angelic silhouette. Izzy encapsulated Clary's beauty, mid laugh, as she wobbled along the top of a wall, cigarette in one hand, and the other thrown out at an angle for balance.

They asked a young couple on a walk if they would photograph them together, and at the last second Izzy pressed her red lips to Clary's fair cheek, and the tiny photo somehow captured their love better than any words they had ever spoken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I hc Clary as being Poly, so even though it might seem like she's cheating on Jace, I just want to make it clear that he's completely aware of her relationship with Izzy, and okay with it. 
> 
> Also next time I'm gonna try and focus more on Saphael and Malec, so if you've any prompts for them in this universe id be happy to try and incorporate them :)


	5. -five-

The heist goes off perfectly. 

Almost perfectly.

Very, very nearly perfectly, aside from one tiny problem; Luke saw Clary. 

And no one but Simon knows that it's a problem at all. Just like no one but Simon (and Magnus) knows that 'Clary's step dad' is in fact the chief of police of the local precinct.

But they got in and out without tripping the alarm, without being spotted by the single, solitary security camera.

And once they had their loot tucked safely in their getaway van, Jace took his bat and sprinkled the glass storefront across the street, while Izzy took a polaroid, and Alec stood behind him with his gun at the ready. And Clary laughed as a rainbow of colours danced and sparked across the ground, mirroring the neon signs above her head. It was magical, like something she could have dreamed, or drawn.

That's when they ran to the van, with Simon already at the wheel as he was the only one with a valid licence, and it's import and to pick your battles when breaking the law, according to Alec.

They were half a block away, Clary was positively fizzing with the certainty that she'd gotten away with it until she locked eyes with Luke in his squad car. It was barely a second, but you don't ever forget the eyes of the man who raised you. Just like you can't forget the face of the child you raised.

But instead of letting the anger and guilt consume her, she climbed through to the back of the fan and lit a cigarette, and focused on the curling smoke. Told herself there was no way he'd seen her,. And if he had, there was no way he would recognise her. And if he did, he had no way of tracking her, but if he did...

"I got you a present." Jace threw the box at her from across the van, startling her.

It was a camera, a proper one with detachable lenses and a strap for around her neck, and without any warning at all Clary felt her eyes welling up with tears, so she leaned over to kiss him before anyone saw.

But her tears reflected the neon signs, the only light source beyond the still lit smoke dangling from her hand.

 

* * *

The music's thumping inside of Izzy, from the spindly heels of her uncomfortable shoes, right up her bared spine, tingling in her perfectly manicured fingertips.

It's her favourite thing, letting herself get lost in the music as the pulsing bass swallows her alive. She's so alive, more so than when she's doing anything else. It's the rhythm of it. It's the way her pulse races like it's never going to stop. When her brain is too full of noise to make room for thought, too full, even for guilt.

She can't remember where she is, but she's pretty sure it's either Lydia's, or Meliorn's place, not that it matters.

She doesn't need to think about that, or anything until the sun rises, when Alec with throw her over his shoulder and she'll complain while Jace laughs, but secretly she'll be glad because by then her feet will probably be bleeding, or blistered, and she'll fall asleep in the cab home and wake up in her own bed twelve hours later with a pounding headache and vague memories of the night.

Then it's rinse and repeat, and repeat, and repeat, repeat, repeat.

 

* * *

Lights flash and Clary stumbles. A siren blares from... behind? To her left? It doesn't make much of a difference as she picks herself off the ground. The alcohol saturating her blood makes it easy to ignore the searing pain of two grazed and bleeding knees, but it also makes her slow.

Jace grabs her hand and pulls her into an alley she hadn't even seen until she was already halfway down it. He takes the beanie he was wearing and stuffs as much of her hair as he can into it. Anything to hide her most identifying feature.

Then the are running again, and Jace is giving her a boost over a chain link fence almost twice her height, before swinging himself over behind her. He stops for a second to run a hand through his hair and look behind them. They dart into an open doorway and up, up, up three flights of stairs to the roof. Clary tries to remember why they were running, but she can't remember more than a few minutes before, and even that is blurred, a kaleidoscope of adrenaline.

Then she hears the siren again and remembers.

The gun, the couple, their jewelry that now decorated Clary's arms and fingers. The man's wallet in Jace's back pocket, beside the gun.

First, the corner store. Clary wanted a drink and Jace had forgotten his ID. He took a shoulder of vodka and two bottles of wine which Clary stuffed into her backpack as the terrified girl behind the counter whispered a prayer in a language Clary didn't speak. Then he took her for a romantic stroll in the park. They didn't have a corkscrew, so Jace had just smashed the top of the bottle against a low wall and offered it to Clary as if it were a bouquet of roses. It might well have been for all she appreciated it. But the wine reminded her of family dinners with her parents so she'd chased the memories with vodka, which reminded her of kissing Jace's split lips and split knuckles, as if she could heal him with her lust.

Then the couple. Jace wanted the man's shine Rolex, Clary wanted the woman's diamond ring, and they both want the adrenaline rush that followed.

Bang.

A bullet lodged itself into a brick wall and Clary giggled, or maybe the alcohol did for her. She remembered wanting a cigarette, or wanting to kiss Izzy, they were equally addictive.

And then they took the jewelry, the rings and watches, the wallets, but not the phones, and their gun had no silencer so now they were being chased through the city by two cops with the misfortune of thinking they could find Jace when he didn't want to be found. The cops make it all the way to the empty rooftop.

But Jace and Clary had already disappeared.

 

* * *

Simon can play guitar.

Clary has known this her whole life, but she never knew how amazing it could be to be able to say "Play that song, you know? The one that goes dum dum dum duhduhduh duhduhduh," while she's high as a kite, and listen as he plays the song back to her.

It's a novelty at first, how his fingers weave stories on the strings in three, four, five chords. Sometimes Magnus sings, sometimes Jace. Clary always joins in, warbling along until Izzy shuts her up with a kiss. Her voice is an angelic as her vices are, which is to say, not at all.

It doesn't take long for them to notice how often Raphael comes over once Simon has all but moved in.

Or maybe it does, but no one complains as the apartment slowly fills with soft Spanish lullabies that always end abruptly when soft lips meet over a guitar. Words get lost between two tongues exploring the depths of one another.

Clary wonders if it's wrong that she's glad Simon stopped fucking Izzy, and if it's wrong that she didn't try to keep her best friend away from the tragedy of their lives. She wonders whether they'll ever talk about why she ran away, why he followed her.

But for now, they'll share joints while he plays guitar and she sings along. And Izzy will shush her, and Raph will take over. And the sun will set and rise, and set and rise, again, and again, and again.

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh boi this is probably the shortest chapter I've written for this, and the worst, plus there's a super mean cliffhanger in here I'm sorry (not really though lol)
> 
> Anyways yeah I got inspired by yesterday's episode to maaaaybe kill someone off, no prize for guessing who and why

"Magnus Bane has to stop trying to save my life," Raphael grumbled as he squeezed himself out of the second storey window of the precinct's bathroom. Clary had slipped out before him, she had done this before, he was certain of it. 

 

"Maybe next time don't get arrested."

 

"Yes, because I wanted this to happen." He scooted carefully across the ledge and followed Clary onto an unstable looking fire escape.

 

"I never said that. What did you do anyways?"

 

"Not-so-peaceful protest. Naturally they blamed the Hispanic kid."

 

"You're twenty."

 

"I'm nineteen."

 

"Same thing."

 

They made it down to the street without falling to their deaths and Clary pulled two dark coloured beanies from her backpack. She handed the dark green one to Raph and pulled the black one over her own fiery mane. Then she swapped out the jacket she was wearing for a dark grey hoodie, and handed a similar one to Raph. He looked around before shrugging it on, but their was no one else i n the deserted alleyway.

 

"Do you really think we'll need disguises?"

 

"We have about five minutes before Luke goes looking for me, maybe less. Better to be safe than sorry."

 

He made a noncommittal noise of agreement, and followed her out onto the street.

 

"Have you seen Captain America two?" Raphael asked.

 

"This is relevant how?"

 

"There's a cop over there. No, don't look. Just hold my hand. Simon made me watch it, and there's a scene where the characters evade the cops with PDA."

 

"You want me to kiss you?"

 

"Dios, don't flatter yourself, Clary. But if they're looking fir us, they wont be looking for a couple."

 

"That's actually pretty smart."

 

"What? Did you think Simon only liked me for my looks?"

 

The five minute journey took them half an hour's walk because Clary didn't want to take the subway (too many cameras) and they had to detour twice to avoid cops, but finally they made it to Magnus's apartment.

 

"Raph!" Simon yelled as he opened the door, before attacking his boyfriend, with his mouth, softly. "I'm so sorry, are you okay? How was it? Did you get a tattoo? Lo siento, Raph, I'm so sorry."

 

"Hey, Simon, it's alright. I was in a holding cell, not Alcatraz."

 

"Don't, don't ever do that to me again."

 

"Trust me, I don't want to."

 

* * *

 

Clary didn't get the voicemail until 3 am. She had been too busy with Jace, to notice the subtle buzz. How something so important could be so ignore-able, she couldn't understand.

 

It was short, thirty seconds maybe, but as soon as it started she was taken back, right back to her childhood.

 

"They don't think she'll last the night. I, I can't do this alone Clary. I can't loose you both."

 

"What happened?" Jace asked as tears rolled steadily, silently down her face.

 

"It's my mom. I have to go." She stood up, throw on one of Jace's sweaters and a pair of Izzy's yoga pants.

 

"Whoa, whoa, hold up babe. You can't go to your mom, it's late, and too far to walk. Go to sleep, and I'll drive you tomorrow."

 

"They don't think she'll make it that long." She had her boots laced up, ready to run all the way to the hospital.

 

"Okay, I'll go wake Alec, see if he's sober enough to drive us."

 

"Us?"

 

"I know what it's like to loose a parent, Clary. I wouldn't let my worst enemy go through that alone."

 

Five minutes and four coffees later, Alec, Jace, Clary and Magnus were sat together in Alec's car. Magnus was driving, with Alec beside him in the front, while Jace was in the back, with Clary as close as humanly possible.

 

"Are you sure about this, biscuit."

 

"I am."

 

"Because if Luke is there-"

 

"I said I'm sure Magnus. She's still my mother, even if she lied to me. I can't just, I mean if she really isn't, I just, I-"

 

"Breathe, biscuit. You have to breathe."

 

"I can't leave her. And I don't want her to leave without at least saying goodbye."

 

* * *

 

Magnus smoothed the moisturiser over his face, just like he did every morning. Then concealer, foundation, contour. 

 

Alec woke up, all tired eyes and bed head. He kissed his boyfriends soft hair, and ran a hand over his stubbled cheek. Alec had stopped shaving regularly a while back. Not that Magnus minded, especially because it made him look older, so they could go out together without having to use Alec's crappy fake ID.

 

"D'you think I could convince Jace to go for a coffee run?"

 

"Only one way to find out, darling." Magnus started on his eye shadow. Purple and mauve, with a hint of gold. His liner went on smoothly, and then all he had left to do was lipstick. His favourite was a dark brown that Alec had pocketed for him weeks ago. He could have afforded it, but Alec, being the perfect gentleman that he was, had insisted.

 

He had just finished his hair when Clary knocked twice and walked right in before he had a chance to answer.

 

"Special delivery!" She held out the Venti Starbucks cup, with James scribbled on the side. Between the five of them, their monthly coffee bill was something Magnus would rather not dwell on, but since they paid for little else it wasn't too big a problem.

 

"Thank's biscuit." He sipped the drink. Caramel latte, with soy milk, just how he liked it.

 

She left after that. Magnus sipped at his coffee again, reapplied his lipstick, and followed her.

 

She was standing beside the table where Jace, Izzy and Alec were seated.

 

He had never really had any family until he'd met Alec and suddenly gained not just a boyfriend but two siblings as well. And just when he had gotten used to that, along came Clary. He hadn't been happy with her for running away, but he was glad that of all the drug dealers she could be crashing with, she'd ended up with him. And now she was a part of his patchwork family too.

 

**Author's Note:**

> As I said before this wouldn't exist without the wonderful mind of WhimperSoldier. Seriously, if you liked this, you'll adore Mustang Kids, which is a million times better. And is just a click away 
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/6620323/chapters/15148636


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